Buying headphones as a gift for a friend. $150 budget, Needs to be durable.

I got into Hi-Fi headphones this past christmas with an AKG K550 for myself and an ATH-M50 for my brother. When a good friend of mine came over I let him demo them for a while and he really liked them, and expressed he was kind of in need of a new pair of cans himself since the cheap ones he had were in pretty bad shape. He's the kind of guy who would never spend very much on himself, so I got together with a couple of other friends and we've pooled about $150 cash to get him a nice set of cans.

The requirements

-must be closed back with decent isolation(used on buses and in other vehicles)

-somewhat portable and able to be driven unamped from this friend's sansa fuze

-durable, this guy is pretty rough on his stuff

-good enough soundstage for gaming

As far as music he listens to; it's mostly prog rock, alt rock, classic rock, metal and some dubstep. So a slight bass emphasis is prefered as long as it's tight. When I had asked him which set of headphones he liked out of my brothers M50s and my k550s, he said he liked the louder base in the M50s, but really appreeciated the extra detail, depth and clarity of the K550s especially for guitar.

I live in Canada in the Ottawa area. So headphones are usually a little more expensive than the states or even Europe.

Give the M80s a look if your friend does not have a large head and is okay with on-ear headphones, as they meet your requirements quite nicely. I haven't heard the Shures, so I can't comment on them. He's quite lucky to have such good friends though!

Give the M80s a look if your friend does not have a large head and is okay with on-ear headphones, as they meet your requirements quite nicely. I haven't heard the Shures, so I can't comment on them. He's quite lucky to have such good friends though!

I had looked at the m-80s when first starting reasearch. They would be ideal except for the price; I couldn't find them for anything less than $170 plus taxes&shipping.

Somewhat unfortunate, especially since I would imagine you wouldn't want any of the under <$150 used options on the FS thread as it is a gift for a friend. If you have any contacts in the US willing to lend you a hand, they're under $150 on Amazon right now. Shipping might kick it up a notch, but I've shipped headphones to people in Canada without them being slammed by customs when I marked it as a gift.

I live in Canada in the Ottawa area. So headphones are usually a little more expensive than the states or even Europe.

Man, you're not kidding about the price difference. What good is all that NAFTA jive if our Canadian bretheren can't even get headphones at a reasonable price? Then again, you guys do get pharmaceuticals for a lot less so I guess it kind of evens out.

Anyway, I'm vouching for the M-80's durability. And for what they are, they are reasonably balanced. Assuming there's no time deadline (birthday, military deployment, etc.), keep looking for a good price on these if you can. But if time is an issue, what's wrong with the M50? Just wondering as he seemed to like those.

Man, you're not kidding about the price difference. What good is all that NAFTA jive if our Canadian bretheren can't even get headphones at a reasonable price? Then again, you guys do get pharmaceuticals for a lot less so I guess it kind of evens out.

Research I did when deciding which cans I was getting turned up a company called JAM Industries. They are a distribution and service collective and they handle pricing, distribution and service/support in Canada for just about all the pro audio companies. Some of the companies they represent audio technica, akg, beyerdynamic, erikson, grado, harman, korg, krk, peavey, sennheiser, shure... etc. So pretty much everything seems to go through them almost creating some sort of price fixing though not on an indistinct commodity.

As for those headphones, looks interesting. I'll be sure to take a look next time I'm at one of their locations; although at that price I doubt they'd allow a demo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HideousPride

Somewhat unfortunate, especially since I would imagine you wouldn't want any of the under <$150 used options on the FS thread as it is a gift for a friend. If you have any contacts in the US willing to lend you a hand, they're under $150 on Amazon right now. Shipping might kick it up a notch, but I've shipped headphones to people in Canada without them being slammed by customs when I marked it as a gift.

thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into it, I have some relatives who use a condo in florida during the winter so I might even be able to avoid the cost of shipping back up here. Though I may just get impatient and pick up the SRH840s.